Sandy Area Chamber Young Entrepreneurs Academy

Our Program

We build entrepreneurs, one student at a time.

The Young Entrepreneurs Academy takes students 11-18 years of age through the process of brainstorming a business idea, writing a business plan, pitching your plan to investors, obtaining funding and launching a REAL business. Start as a student, and finish as the CEO of your own company! The program runs from January - May and classes are held on Thursday nights from 4:00 pm - 7:00 pm. The cost to participate in the program is $395.

Applications are due December 15, 2017.

Sandy Area Class

The program runs from January –
May. Class is held Thursday nights from 4:00pm-7:00pm and will be held at the Salt Lake Community College Miller Business Resource Building (9750 South 300 West, Sandy, UT 84070)

Salt Lake City Area Class

The program runs from January –
May. Class is held Thursdays nights from 4:00pm-7:00pm and will be held at the Granite Technical Institute (2500 S. State Street, Salt Lake City, UT 84115)

2016-2017 Winners

Ideas come in all forms. Check out the winners from this year, Penelope “Chef Moppy” Lorenzana and Olivia Berhan. Read the blog post about their year in YEA!

Read our Newsletter

A class instructor, mentors, business experts from many industries, classmates…
The curriculum is divided into three sections: The Big Idea, The Pitch, and The Launch.
Follow along on our journey by keeping up with our newsletter.

Photo Gallery

See the photos from the Shark Tank or from our adventures as we journeyed out to businesses on our field trips.

CEO Roundtable

At the CEO Roundtable, students and parents get to network with each other and hear from power local CEO’s from around Utah. Hosted by Salt Mine Productive Work Space

Sponsors

Our program exists thanks to the very generous sponsors we have in our program.
Click here to view the many sponsors who make this program possible here in Utah.

About Young Entrepreneurs Academy

STUDENTS 11 - 18 YEARS OLD | COST OF THE PROGRAM IS $395

We are focused on building entrepreneurs, one student at a time.

The Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA!) began in 2004 at the University of Rochester, with grant support from the Kauffman Foundation. This intensive entrepreneurship training program guides middle and high school students through the process of starting and running a legitimate business or social movement.

The Sandy Area Chamber Young Entrepreneurs Academy has graduated 92 student entrepreneurs. We have produced over 60 potential new businesses. Our winners competed in the 2017 Saunders Scholars YEA! regional competition, and one of our winners was chosen as a finalist in the national competition where she was awarded second place!

Now with three years and two nationally placed winners under our belts, we are aiming to push our program to be better and stronger for the coming years.

Ryan Tingey

Spencer Harden

Our Past Winners

At the end of the program, students have the opportunity to continue on in starting their businesses.

Soquet

2014-2015 Winner

Soquet was the winning business of our very first “Shark Tank Investor Panel”.

Straight Shot Apparel

2015-2016 Winner

Emily Guertler won with her business presentation for her company, Straight Shot Apparel. Emily went on to compete in regionals and took one of six seats (from 90 businesses) to go to the national competition. Emily won 3rd Place and People’s Choice Award at finals!

Kelali

2016-2017 Sandy Class Winner

Olivia Berhan won with her business Kelali and was awarded $4,000 in startup funds! She traveled to Ethiopia to get her business ventures started. Her company is a for profit philanthropic business aimed to help women in Ethiopia who have been victims of abduction marriage and other events.

LifeThyme Tool Co.

2016-2017 Granite GTI Class Winner

Penelope “Chef Moppy” Lorenzana won the GTI Class’ Shark Tank and won $3,900 to start her business, LifeThyme Tool Co. Her business is focused on creating cooking tools for young professional chefs and for people with smaller sized hands.

Testimonials

When asked what they liked best about YEA!, here's what actual students has to say

I liked that you had a positive atmosphere around you and the teachers and mentors who helped you every step of the way.

The [Investor Panel] Shark Tank night was amazing! It was so fun to see all the fun ideas the kids had come up with! I was so impressed with how prepared everyone was. YEA! was so much more than I thought it was going to be. [My student] has loved every minute of this! Well done YEA!

Latest News

In May of 2017, Penelope Lorenzana, also known as Chef Moppy, (11) traveled to Rochester, NY as the semi-finalists in the Saunders Scholars Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA!) regional and national competitions. Chef Moppy was the top winner from her class in the Sandy Chamber Young Entrepreneurs Academy and won $3,900 to start her business. Since[…]

Olivia Berhan (17 years old), CEO of Kelali, and Penelope Lorenzana (11 years old) CEO of LifeThyme Tool Co. were awarded over $3,000 each of seed money for their respective businesses at the 3rd Annual Sandy Area Chamber Young Entrepreneurs Academy Shark Tank Investor Panel. Out of 44 students these two young exceptional women[…]

Without our sponsors, we wouldn’t have a program. Let’s give you a chance to get to know the businesses behind our Sandy Area Chamber Young Entrepreneurs Academy. We’ve had a lot of help this year and, with the prospects for the future, we are excited to grow our efforts. Our sponsors are featured in each[…]

Sean Marchant is one of our chamber ambassadors. He has taken the opportunity to mentor some of the students in our Sandy Class for our Young Entrepreneurs Academy. He has been providing valuable help to our students, which will get them prepared faster for our upcoming Investor Panel Shark Tank. His comments and thoughts on[…]

Diane Sheya, Owner of Salt Lake Culinary Center, opened her doors to our Sandy Area Chamber Young Entrepreneurs Academy Granite class. Salt Lake Culinary, located at 2233 South 300 East, Salt Lake City, UT 84115, is a cooking school that offers a wide variety of classes to the home cook. Diane has been a culinary[…]

Hi everyone! We hope you are enjoying the fun as much as we are in Young Entrepreneurs Academy. Last week our students took tours of both the Leatherby’s Restaurant in Draper and the Megaplex Theatres at Valley Fair Mall. The students learned a lot about what it takes to run both places. At Leatherby’s, the[…]

These are the faces of the Sandy Area Chamber Young Entrepreneurs Academy! We are so excited about this year and the ideas that have been generated. We have 17 weeks left until the Investor Panel Shark Tank. These students are excited to see where this program takes them. We have a mix of students from[…]

WELCOME to all of our new students for the year! We will be featuring a blog post with all of them in it, but here’s a sneak peak… Say hello to the GTI and SANDY Cohorts! Congratulations to all of our students! The students had to go through a very competitive process to get into[…]

Laurie Stringham has been a business owner since 1990 is an Independent Fine Art Professional trained as a professional costume designer and makeup artist and a piano technician. Laurie will be the instructor for our GTI Cohort this year. She has extensive background and experience in running her own business. She has served on several[…]